Evening Star Newspaper, April 20, 1930, Page 78

G THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. €, APRIL THE BEST THINGS. The Story of a Discontented Wife. BY AGNES SLIGH TURNBULL. ANCY BLAIR stood at the window watching Jack swing off down the street to catch the 8:15 commuters’ express for the city. Her lips were pressed together, and there was anger in her heart. Not the sort of anger that comes in nebulous little gusts in the morning, is blown very thin by the comfortable routine of the day, and then with the evening’s kiss is as if it had never been. No, Nancy’s snger was not that kind. It was very still and quiet and bitter ~—the kind from which a woman can draw a chill dignity which makes her seem as unap- proachable as the Jura Mountains. It was in this cold and distant mood that Nancy had prepared the breakfast, sat down op- posite Jack in their sunny little dining room afiswered briefly his cheerful flow of con- versation. “What's wrong?” he demanded at last. “Was last night too much for you? Why don't you Jet a few of these high-brows eat at home for a while? You're all tired out!” “I'm all right.” Nancy had responded briefly. ®That is, I'm not physically tired.” Jack grabbed his paper and his watch. “Thunder! I forgot I had to stop at the bank. Good-by, honey. Now, you rest up today and forget about dinner parties. A darned nuisance, I call them! Good-by, dear.” He kissed her eagerly, as he always did, and left the house with a great slamming of screen doors and clatter of shoes on the steps. He was whistling as he turned to wave to her from the street. Nancy waved back mechanically, the cold arrow still in her heart, and then turned to the living room, which recalled only too vividly the whole scene of the evening before. She sank down in the deep chair to think things over, i Tnzmtotltallmthat.!wkdldn‘t even known what he had done. He was as happy and care-free now as if he had not just laid waste some of her fondest hopes. It was not even as if she had not explained the importance of the dinner to him. He knew what cultured people the Lynns were. To have them accept at all was positively overwhelming. “Just a little informal dinner,” she had told Mrs. Lynn lightly over the telephone; “no other guests.” And at that austere lady's “We shall be delighted to come over, I'm sure. It's so pleasant to share young people’s home life,” Nancy had almost fainted away in her chair, She had anticipated an equally gracious refusal, But it was like Nancy to aspire and to suc- ceed. Already, during their three years’ stay in Wcodlawn, she had become a member of three clubs and chairman of a half-dozen com- mittees; and her aspirations ran still higher, 8he was, she knew, considered one of the most capable of the young mafrons along all lines intellectual. Mrs. Lynn, who was president of the Women’s Club, had particularly singled her out for responsibility and favor. And when that personage had called, and later invited them tc her musicale, Nancy had felt that her feet were well up on the ladder that she hoped to climb. For the Lynns were not only wealthy, they were Woodlawn’s most distinguished family. Mrs. Lynn wrote articles for the magazines on “Club Work, and Women in Politics,” and sub- jects like that; and Mr. Lynn was interested in collecting, and had been to Greece, and actually helped a party excavate some vases and bones! ® So had the stage been set for what Nancy felt was the great scene of her social career up to date. The table did look lovely. And Jane, her cleaning woman, knew how to serve beauti- fully, and was already in the kitchen. In the living room, Nancy, in her best frock, which emphasized the fresh, natural pink of her cheeks, was trying to be calm and not flit about, while the minutes sped by and Jack did not come. She had warned him about being late. Dinner was at 7. At 6:30 Jack arrived, very much begrimed from the first hot day of Spring, but affectionately blithe as usual. “Hello, honey! Why all the dolled-upped- ness?” Then, at her expression, he sank heavily onto the slender hall chair, which was meant only for looks, anyway. “Great suffering suckers!” he ejaculated. “I forgot this dinner business! But say, Hsten, honey. Do you know what I pulled off today? I landed old Griscom! - Yes, sir, with a good, big, fat order. I've been after him for two years, and today I got him, darn his old thick hide!” “Hurry, Jack—yes, that's fine—but hurry! They're likely to come any minute and you have to shave. Please hurry, Jack. You know the Lynns.” “Oh, to the dickens with the Lynns! Say, you haven't given me a kiss. Isn't it the cat’s, though, about old Griscom’s order? Wait till they see that roll in at the office. Oh baby!” It was then 15 minutes to 7. At 10 minutes of the hour a door slammed vigorously upstairs, the sound of running water and violent splash- ings came down, only slightly muted, to the living room; and in another 5 minutes the door bell rang and Mr. and Mrs. Lynn, poised, immaculate, and faintly condescending entered, " At this point in her mental review Nancy paused to admit a point of honor. Jack didn’t know that the guests had arrived. He couldn’t hear anything above the sea noises he was making. But he should have assumed they were there and acted accordingly. WHAT had happened next was this: Just | after Nancy had explained how very sorry her husband was to be late and not present to gecelve them and the usual amenities had been . every word! exchanged in soft, well bred voices, a door up stairs had opened noisily and Jack’s heavy tramp was heard above, to the loud, cheerful accompaniment of this chant: “If te riv-er was whis-ky and I was a duck! I would dive to the bottom and nev-er come up!” Mr. Lynn had raised pale, guestioning eyes. What Mrs. Lynn did was worse, so far as Nancy's inner comfort went. She acted as if no foreign sound had penetrated her conscious- ness. She began, with slow animation, to speak of the last club meeting. For 15 minutes more Nancy had lived a dual existence ghastly to recall. Outwardly she was calm, sweetly alert and entertaining. Inwardly she was seething with anger, fear and shame. For the singing had kept on, changing with great versatility on the soloist’s part into sev- eral minor keys, until at last the lyric of the bibulous duck had been abandoned, and Jack had run down the stairs, as usual, kicking up the hall rug and then kicking it straight again. At the living room door he had stopped aghast, His expression was really penitential. “Why, I didn't know you folks had come! Well, say, I'm sorry. I guess you must think I'm the prize bath room tenor! How d’you do, Mrs. Lynn. How d'you do, sir.” Dinner had been announced. But in spite of the excellent viands and Jane's really per- fect service, there was something wrong. Mrs, Lynn’s attitude was more and more conde- scending as she tried to converse with Jack. “I've just been reading a new book on psycho- analysis. Are you at all interested in it, Mr, Blair?” Jack returned promptly: “I can’t see—" “Oh, do tell us about it, Mrs. Lynn; I'm really so interested!” Nancy had intervened, and from that time on had made the conversa- tion three-cornered, while Jack ate steadily en with unmistakable ; After dinner it had been little better. The subjects Jack introduced were so plebeian, He had even asked Mr. Lynn if he was having any trouble now with the ash man, and if he knew which kind of fertilizer was best for raising peas. And he didn't act really interested when Mr. Lynn was telling about his old pieces of pottery and his first editions. _ The guests left early. There was something, something in the air of their good-bys which gave Nancy a constrictedefeeling in her throat, though her smile was still sweetly upon them until the door rad closed. Then she had sunk miserably into the nearest chair, “Jack,” she said, and there was bitterness in the tones, “they’ll never come again!” g “Gosh, I hope not,” Jack had agreed calmly, as he stretched his long legs before him and clutched his pipe and tobacco box. “Say, he's the driest old bird outside a museum. He ought to be stuffed, that fellow! Poor old beg- gar, though. I'll bet he ecan't even call his toothbrush his own with that woman around him all the time!” “Jack!” Nancy’s voice was stern. “You must remember these people are my friends, and the kind of people I want to——" “Oh, all right, honey. Like ’em if you want -to. Say, wasn't it great, though, about old Griscom? Got under his skin at last, eh? He's a good old scout when you once understand him.” But Nancy was not to be dissuaded. “Jack, those awful songs. We could hear Why can’t you be careful and act like a gentleman.” AND that had been all. She had gonme silently to bed and pretended to be asleep at once. Against Jack’s invincible good humor she felt helpless. She couldn’t argue with him; she couldn’t change him, or explain to him why she wanted to. He met everything with his impervious cheerfulness. And she was sick of it, As she sat now in the early morning, having reviewed all that had passed, she knew suddenly that her abilities were being wasted as Jack's wife. She was capable of taking her place on a higher social and intellectual plane, She was being held back by an uncultured husband. That was the bald truth. And the provoking part of it was that Jack was really clever, if he would only take pains to show it to the right people;. if he would only try, as she was always urging him, to enlarge his appreciation of the best things. She felt startled and shaken by the discovery. It seemed so disloyal to admit it. -But the anger over last night's happenings still burned. It was by its light that she saw herself an injured and disillusioned wife. She saw her love for Jack overcast by a shadow. Through the day, as she went about her duties, the heavy sense of unhappiness alter- nated with a feeling of interesting sophistica- - tion. She had become one with all the im- portant heroines of fiction who were made of finer clay than their husbands. Little vignettes of comparison kept popping into her mind as she worked, She saw herself conscientiously reading Shaw’s last play, while Jack sprawled in the big chair with the sporting sheet wide before him, and his pipe omitting great puffs. He wouldn’t even smoke cigarettes. And they were so0 much more refined than pipe! Of course, he did read stacks of books on sales- manship, and a few on travel, but outside of that he stuck to the newspaper and detective stories. And that play that she had been so anxious to see—the one all the critics pronounced the best of the season—Jack had been Inbearable about that. She had been thinking on the 20, 1930. It was in this cold and distant mood that Nancy had prepared the breakfasty sat down opposite Jack in their sunny little dining room, and answered briefly his cheerful flow of conversation. way home about the report she was to give of it at a club meeting, and she had said (somewhat cleverly), “It’s so mellow, Jack. Mellow with life!” And Jack had given a great snort: “Ill say it's mellow! It's so mellow it's rotten; that's what's wrong with it!” And as to people! He called that handsome Mr. Whitney who almost ran the Country Club, “as wind-jammer.” And Mr. Carson, who had played at the Lynn’s musicale! Jack had been positively rude about him, He imitated him when they got home. He whirled an invisible waxed moustache delicately with his big fingers, and smirked: “Oh, sweet sassafras! Where did I leave my crocheting?” He was like that about people who mattered. She kept recalling, during the day, these and other instances -of their real incompatibility, wondering dully what would be the outcome of it all, and sinking into an abyss of fear at what she had allowed her mind to admit as the truth. When Jack came home she tried to meet him as usual. He came bounding into the hall, at- tempting to hide a long bundle behind him. “Got a surprise for you,” he chuckled, when he had at last satisfied himself with kisses, “Guess what?” Nancy suddenly forgot she was tied to an un- congenial mate. Her lovely face flushed de- lightedly. “Oh, Jack! did you get the roses?” “You bet I did. Blew myself! Two dozen of the very top-notchers! All guaranteed to bloom this Summer. Say, let’s plant them now!” Nancy flew for her apron and gloves. Dinner could wait, There was indeed one point upon which they did agree perfectly, she and Jack. That was the garden. It was not large, but it was as fair as careful planning and hard work could make it. The little vegetable plot bor- dered by currant bushes, the banks of iris and peonies, the long beds of old-fashioned peren- nials, and now—the rose plot! Everything was young yet, but growing prodigiously. And every shoot, every promise or fulfillment of a blossom was watched over and discussed with loving pride. They rushed out in the morning before breakfast to see what miracle had transpired during the darkness. And every moonlight night they walked along the paths before they went to bed, planning new beauties and breath- ing in its peace. F course, Jack made wicked paraphrases on all her quotations, his favorite being: “A garden is a lot of work, God wot!” But some- times in the moonlight he listened respectfully to what the poets had to say about gardens. “Darned if that's not the truth!” he would remark. Now, she could hear him rattling his spades and rakes in the cellar and singing joyously: “My grandfather’s whiskers were too large for his face, So they grew round the rim of his hat!” She tried to put the absurd words from her mind and think only of the roses. It is barely possible that in the united joy of the planting and in the thrill of a particu- larly important.bridge-luncheon invitation that reached her that night, Nancy might have suc- cessfully covered up her angry, unhappy con- ° fusion of- thoughts if the letter had not arrived the next day. In a pale gray, innocent seeming envelope came the match that was to light the slumbering fuse. It was a message from Grace, who had been Nancy’s great friend in college, and who had later married a banker! A bank president! Frederick Sloane, Nancy had not seen her since, although they wrote each other their news regularly, but she had feasted her soul on lofty thoughts of what Grace's life must be. The letter asked her to visit them at their town residence, where they would be until later than usual that year. That night at dinner, her eyes very bright, her voice eager and yet awed, she explained to Jack the quality of the house« hold to which she was going.- For, of course, The thoughts of the day before The day she left, with all her clothes care- fully refurbished and her new ones impressively placed in the top of her trunk, Jack was ridiculously gay as he took her to the station. But just before she stepped on the train he held her close, though their good-by was supposed to have been said. “Gee, I love you, honey!” he whispered in her ear. “And I'll miss you!” From the moment Nancy entered the stately doorway of the old Suoane house she knew that at last she was against the proper background. And some subtle clothing of manner and be= havior seemed to descend upon her. She ac- . cepted the butler, the white-capped maid, and the elegance of the furnishings as if she lived with them from infancy. She said just the right things to Grace, who had grown to look much older and more dignified. She dressed for dinner in a dream of excitement which flushed her cheeks and made her admit to herself that she- really did look rather wone derful in her new lace dress. Then she met her host, Her first impression was surprise at his youth. Why, he couldn’t be more than 10 or 15 years older than Jack! But in his manner he seemed to possess all the dignity and charm of the ages. Such polish! Such - savoir faire! And Nancy rose to the occasion instinctively. Never had she been more ani- mated. Never had she made so many clever comments on literature and life. Her conversa- tion sparkled with bright bits of patter she had picked up her and there. She even used her mellow speech about the play. It was flatter< ingly received by Mr. Sloane. “Just the words I should myself have chosen to sum it all up—that is, if I had been clever enough to think of them,” he added, with & - gallant bow, In the days that followed Nancy felt herself miraculously reincarnated. She lunched, she drove, she dined with the smart, gay, glittering people who belonged in the Sloane's exclusive circle; people who had read everything, seen everything. And though it took some skillful hedging sometimes and some hasty dips into this or that fresh “classic,” she managed to keep up her end of .the brilliant conversational game at which they all seemed to be playing. She wondered sometimes if they really meant all those hard, witty things they said about— well, about marriage and love, for instance. If Jack could hear them she would say it was “the bunk.” But, of course, he would say some vulgar thing like that! JACK had sent her an absurd sketch of hime self leaning on his rake; large tears dropping to the ground; a caterpillar, a June bug, and a worm, all greatly elongated, were weeping copie ously in the path beside him. Below ran the legend: “We're lonesome without you in the garden.” Grace had seen the paper on her desk and looked at it strangely. Nancy had explained it to her a little shamefacedly, for Jack had drawn his denim overalls with une canny accuracy. Grace had not laughed. She had only looked and looked at the little sketch, and then laid it down quickly and left the room without a word. Nancy wondered if she pitied her. As the days passed it was more and more clear that Mr. Sloane, who had now become Fred, enjoyed Nancy's society. He took her driving. He sat next her at the theater. He spent long evenings with her in the library, while Grace read in the living room, talking